Pages

Sunday, August 3, 2014

Review: All The Truth That's In Me by Julie Berry

All The Truth That's In Me

By Julie Berry

Blurb: Four years ago, Judith
and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell
Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated,
reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family.
Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home, silently
pouring out her thoughts to the boy who’s owned her heart as long as she
can remember—even if he doesn’t know it—her childhood friend, Lucas.
But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light,
and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover
her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around
her, forever. This startlingly original novel will shock and disturb
you; it will fill you with Judith’s passion and longing; and its
mysteries will keep you feverishly turning the pages until the very
last.

All the Truth That's in Me
is one of the few books where I went in completely blind as to what it
was about. All I knew was that at one point I had read the blurb and
thought it sounded good. So, though at this point I had forgotten what
that blurb had said, I started to read. I guessed from the cover and
title that this would be a modern day thriller or something like that.

Well,
if you've read this book, you'll know I was pretty wrong. First off
being that this is historical fiction. I adore historical fiction, and All the Truth That's in Me really solidified my love for HS by reminding me what makes me so loyal to this genre.

This
book starts off with the reader very in the dark as to what has
happened to Judith. Not having read the blurb, every revelation that the
book gave as to what happened made me want to gasp. Not until the very,
very end is the complete story revealed. Even when I thought I knew
what had happened, my inferences were wrong. The author gave me a sliver
of Judith's ordeal, and then another, and it wasn't until the end that
all those little slivers came together.

The second person made
the narrative of this story oh-so-much-better than anything I'd read
before. I like 'unusual' narratives, and I had almost begun to think
that second person narratives didn't exist and were a myth perpetuated
by English teachers. It made Judith's love for Lucas more depressingly
believable--instead of the sugary, too-sweet, "he's really hot and I
love him" insta-love that is so many of the teen books I read, I got an
unrequited, hopeless and dreary sort of love. It broke my heart, just
like the rest of this book.

The characters in All the Truth
That's in Me were exquisite. They were complex, non-formulaic, and
well-written. Judith was a character I won't forget soon; I really don't
have the words to describe her. I just wanted her to have a happy
ending. Lucas made me mad at times, because I just wanted him to treat
Judith like he used to--but in time, I liked him a lot. He changed for
the better. Maria was a character that I was not expecting to like at
all. I thought I would be hating on her the whole book for 'stealing'
Lucas; but that isn't how it turned out, and I ended up thinking over as
a very sweet friend who I adored. She was probably one of the nicest
people in the whole town.

The plot, too, is amazing. There's
never a moment that I wanted to stop reading. I was always in suspense; I
always wanted to know more about what happened to Judith; from the very
beginning I was hooked. There were always mysteries and questions that
needed to be answered.

But what really pulled the book into five
star territory was the emotional impact it had on me. My throat was
perpetually achy; I had misty eyes. I couldn't help but feel sad, or
angry, or a combination of both, for Judith. My emotions went a bit
haywire while reading her story.

Five stars for this book. I want
to give it as many stars as I possibly can, because it played with my
emotions; got me immediately hooked; proved, yet again, that historical
fiction is not boring; made great use of the second person narrative;
and so, so much more.